True to their altruistic reputation, Guardian readers have been inundating our letters column with details of how far Gordon Brown's Budget fell short of help for the poorest of the poor. They are right. The poorest of the poor, as we noted last Thursday, received little help from the chancellor. Because their benefits are linked to prices not earnings, they will have to watch an already shameful gap between the richest and poorest 10% grow even wider. The poorest are people without work - unemployed or chronically sick - and without children.

The overwhelming proportion of the extra aid which Labour has provided through its imaginative anti-poverty programmes has gone to working families - or "hard-working families" in current ministerial jargon. No one can dispute the way this has lifted 1.2m children and 800,000 adults out of poverty. But as we noted last week, this still leaves 3m children and many more adults below the poverty line - twice the level when Labour was last in power. Yet Labour did not just promise to help the poor by assisting them into work. Its famous mantra ("work for those who can, security for those who can't") also promised to help the unemployed. What can be done? The Budget is over, but the election manifesto is still to come. There are three simple reforms which Labour members should insist on the party adopting.

First, an earnings index for income support benefits in order to prevent inequality widening. Second, help for the poorest pensioners. They are being aided by the chancellor already. His minimum income guarantee (MIG), which has been given an earnings index, lifts the April single pension of £72.50 by £20 and a couple's basic pension of £115.90 by £25. But why not restore what they have lost since Margaret Thatcher broke the earnings link in 1981? That has cost every single pensioner £30 a week, and a couple £45. MIG should be lifted to these levels. Third, restore the old role of the social fund, set up to meet emergency needs of the poor (a cooker, bed or furniture). The Tories ended the grant system and insisted that loans become the main source of help - despite the desperate plight of applicants. This is plunging poor people into even further debt. Labour's social justice commission described the system as "soul destroying". Labour condemned the loans. It should have restored grants long ago.